Feds move to keep NSA call data indefinitely

2/26/14 1:24 PM EST

Citing the need to preserve evidence related to pending lawsuits, the Obama administration is asking for permission to keep data on billions of U.S. phone calls indefinitely instead of destroying it after five years.

In a motion filed Tuesday with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Justice Department says the series of lawsuits over the program — including one filed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — create a duty for the government to hang on to the so-called metadata currently in the National Security Agency’s computer systems.

“Based upon the issues raised by Plaintiffs in the … lawsuits and the Government’s potential defenses to those claims, the United States must ensure that all potentially relevant evidence is retained which includes the [business record] metadata obtained in bulk from certain telecommunications service providers pursuant to this Court’s production orders,” Justice Department lawyers write in a motion (posted here).

The motion was released Wednesday on the court’s public web page. There was no immediate indication of a ruling from the surveillance court.

The NSA’s call metadata program is aimed at detecting terrorist plots affecting the U.S., but evidence of the effort’s success is murky. President Barack Obama has proposed ending the NSA’s collection of the data. Officials are considering storing it with the telephone companies themselves, creating a new entity to hold it, or reconstructing the program in some other way.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that U.S. officials were considering making the request submitted on Tuesday.